Jimmy Cliff, Jamaican singer who took reggae international with You Can Get It If You Really Want

One day he walked into Leslie Kong’s ice cream parlour-cum-recording studio and sang his own composition, Dearest Beverley. Kong signed him and produced his first local hit, Hurricane Hattie, and, at 14, renamed Jimmy Cliff, he found himself at the forefront of the nascent ska movement with its uptempo jaunty rhythms, and helping a young Robert Marley record his first song, Judge Not.

The new Jamaican government wanted to popularise the local sound, and in 1965 Cliff joined Prince Buster and Byron Lee’s Dragonaires on a tour of the US, where he met Chris Blackwell, the British founder of Island Records. Blackwell persuaded Cliff to move to England, where he worked as a backing singer for other Island artists. His debut solo album, Hard Road to Travel (1967), and a flotilla of singles, failed to chart.

In 1969 he left Island for Trojan Records, and Wonderful World, Beautiful People, taken from his album Jimmy Cliff (1970), became his first Top 10 hit, the first for reggae as a crossover genre. Cliff’s radio-friendly work was light and poppy compared with the darker sounds of ska and rocksteady coming from Jamaica.